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Volunteers
Glen A.
Wimbley V.
Everett L.
Angela A.
Andrew S.
Joe S.sd
Dewayne S.
Jason R.
Clint L. Jr.
Nick P.
MIke P.
Ben S.
Saturday and Sunday were beautiful days at Long Leaf. The volunteers
took on multiple tasks in preparation for the fall festival in two
weeks.
Glen worked in the morning and repaired the door on the groom's room at
the bunkhouse, as well as replacing hose fittings on the two hoses in
the engine house. We now have 150' of serviceable water hose for our
use.
Jason and Andrew used the tractor to move debris from next to the
entrance road to the burn pile.
The crew brought the M-4 up to the Engine House in preparation for
running a weed and branch control train later with the M-2. When the M-4
passed the Engine House, Glen noted that it did not sound right and had
Wimbley get underneath when it was over the pit. Wimbley quickly
discovered that the exhaust pipe had parted at the exhaust manifold. Not
a good thing.
Dewayne and Angela, assisted by Andrew, immediately went to work to
repair the break. With Dewayne and his welding skills, a new, heavier
pipe was welded in place and the repair is stronger than the original.
It took 4 hours but by 3:00 they were done and the M-4 was again
serviceable.
Joe grabbed the tractor and the finish mower and went to work on mowing
and Jason started weed eating around the Engine House. Joe had started
mowing on Friday evening, and mowed all day Saturday as well.
Everett had purchased piping and a valve to plumb up for a whistle
connection from the air tanks in the Engine House. Wimbley, Mike, Clint
and Ben worked with him to build the connection and work on the whistle
from the 106 that Wimbley had located on the grounds. The piping was
constructed so that the up standing pipe can be laid down and raised to
allow for whistles to be changed out, or removed for safety. When
Dewayne finished the M-4 he built a brace for the stand pipe to finish
the job and for the first time since 1954 a steam locomotive whistle
echoed over Long Leaf.
Wimbley, Clint, Ben, Andrew and Mike went to work on the loop running a
brush clearing train but were cut short by the necessity of running the
M-4 for crew training and an upcoming wedding.
Crew for the wedding trips was Angela as conductor and Everett as
motorman. Two trips were run for the wedding party.
After running the wedding trips, crew training on the M-4 continued as
we continued to qualify more operators. The addition of the speedometer
makes the running of the car much easier and an operations order on the
running of the car is following soon. At the end of the day, we
qualified 4 more operators, bringing the total of certified operators to
14 with 2 more currently training. (list enclosed). During the training,
the M-4 started experiencing air system failures. It was decided to look
into that on Sunday.
After the wedding while running crew training we offered rides to the
wedding party and hauled two full loads of people who then wanted tours.
Angela and others gave tours to over 30 people where interested enough
to promise to return to ride the train and take tours.
Saturday turned out to be a most productive 11 hour day for the
volunteers!
Sunday's crew was Joe, Angela, Andrew and Everett. Joe was the most
active, but Andrew and Angela did some weed clearing of the railroad by
the car knockers shed, while Joe started mowing, and then decided to
clean out the track leading to the #400. Once that track was again
cleared, out, Everett and Joe made an estimate of what it would take to
repair the track, and rebuild the switch leading to it. Doing this has
been a back burner idea for several years, and now the museum has the
ability to actually do it.
Everett and Angela repaired several of the spike mauls and other tools.
Joe was also called to troubleshoot the electrical problem that caused
the compressor to not function. It took him less than 30 seconds to
diagnose the problem as a broken fuse, which was repaired with JB Weld
and the car is now fully functional. All that remains to be done is to
replace the red light cover over the right rear marker light.
-Everett Lueck
RR&G Superintendent
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